


it's always you

by jayeinacross



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayeinacross/pseuds/jayeinacross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 Mallory/Q AUs.</p>
<p>(1) siren!Q and sailor!M, (2) private detective!Q and client!M, (3) librarian!M and student!Q, (4) ghost!Q and hauntee!M, (5) assassin!Q and target!M.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's always you

**Author's Note:**

> title from the Chet Baker song.

_siren!Q and sailor!M_

  
Mallory finds the siren on a tiny, rocky little island, sitting in a nest of stark white bones, his thin fingers plucking at the strings of his harp. His wings are clipped and his tongue cut out, the despair in his eyes and the melancholy tune of his harp impossible to ignore.

His crew thinks he's mad for bringing the siren on board, and he expects nothing less, but however lenient and open with his crew he might be, he's still the captain of this ship.

"I've seen those things lure men away from everything they believe in until they're starved to death," Eve hisses to Mallory as soon as the siren is out of sight in Mallory's quarters.

Mallory's seen his fair share of sailors follow a siren's song to their deaths, but this one is different.

"He doesn't have his voice," Mallory says. "He's harmless."

The siren's playing his harp again, a sweet but sad sound, floating up from below the deck. The others still look doubtful. Even without a voice, they can't shake the notion that a siren is bad luck, leading ships into reefs and crashing into rocks.

A siren with no voice is a sad thing; it is who they are and how they live, and this siren has a haunted, hollow look in his eyes. He's a skinny little wraith, dark hair curling down over his eyes, and his fingers hardly ever stop moving on the strings of his harp.

It's the closest he can get to song, Mallory supposes, and Bond gripes about the constant music, but other than that, the siren doesn't bother anyone. He shies away from all the crew members except Mallory, either spending time in Mallory's quarters, where he curls up in a comfortable corner, or up on deck where he won't be in the way, staring out to the sea.

"Why did you bring him here?" Bond asks on the second day the siren's been on board the ship. He's finally ventured out of Mallory's quarters, tentatively coming upstairs and edging around the deck.

The siren is looking at Mallory with wide eyes, and Mallory smiles at him reassuringly. "He's not a danger to anyone," he says to Bond. "He's got no voice. He's broken. With nothing, with nobody."

Mallory watches the siren standing at a corner of the deck, fingers idly plucking at the harp's strings, and it's not an answer, but it's enough of one for Bond.

 

* * *

 

_private detective!Q and client!M_

  
"Are you the Quartermaster?" Bill Tanner asks, hovering by the door.

"Come in." The man behind the desk leans back in his chair, blows smoke towards Tanner as he comes inside and sits down. "Mr. Tanner, if you need to ask me that question, maybe you shouldn't be here."

"I need your help."

"Mm. Try again." The Quartermaster puts out his cigarette and clasps his hands in his lap. "If you're here, you know who I am, and you know that I'm entirely aware of why you're here. But I'm not interested in you, Mister Tanner. If your boss wants to hire me, then he can come in here himself."

"You certainly live up to your reputation, Quartermaster," a man says, appearing in the doorway. "Thank you, Tanner, you can go."

"Mister Mallory," the Quartermaster says, leaning forward. He shakes his hand cordially, gesturing for him to sit down. "I hear that you're missing someone."

Mallory takes a photograph from his jacket pocket and slides it across the desk. "You know who he is, I take it."

The Quartermaster only glances at the photograph for a moment. "Of course. The elusive Mister Bond. I can find him. The real question is, what do you have for me?"

"I think I have something that you want."

Mallory hands something else over, a letter this time. As the Quartermaster reads it, a smile spreads over his face. "Well, Mister Mallory, I think we can do business." He opens his cigarette case, offers one to Mallory.

"Thank you, Quartermaster," Mallory says, taking it and leaning forward to let the other man light it, locking eyes with him.

"It's my pleasure," the Quartermaster says. "And just call me Q."

 

* * *

 

_librarian!M and student!Q_

"I'm supposed to be studying," Q says, but he doesn't do anything to push away Mallory's wandering hands. "And you're supposed to be working."

"And here I was thinking that you were here to see me," Mallory murmurs, kissing down Q's neck, his hands working at unbuttoning Q's cardigan.

"James and Eve are going to wonder where I've gone, they're right out there." Q gestures clumsily to the other side of the stacks that they're hiding behind, where Mallory has Q pressed up against the shelves of books, like every time he comes into the library.

Mallory hums. "Give them a little credit, I'm sure they know exactly what you're doing right now." He kisses Q before he can reply, long and hard, and Q melts into it.

"All right," Q says breathlessly, finally breaking away and tugging his cardigan back onto his shoulders. "I really have to go. I have an exam on Tuesday."

He kisses Mallory one more time and then darts away, straightening his glasses. Mallory had been right, of course, his friends look at him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement, when he slides back into his chair, his hair a mess.

"You are like a walking cliche," James tells him.

"I didn't think students actually had affairs with librarians," Eve says. "I thought that only happened in romance novels."

"Shut up," Q says, flushing, but he can't help breaking into a grin when he catches Mallory's eye from across the room.

 

* * *

 

_ghost!Q and hauntee!M_

Q spends his days half-heartedly rattling windows and slamming doors, trying to scare away tenants. They're all dull or irritating, and there aren't a lot of options for entertainment when you're a ghost. All in all, it's a rather lonely afterlife, until Mallory comes along.

He works in government intelligence, which Q soon learns really means espionage, and he can see Q.

Mallory takes it rather well. Q drifts after him when he first moves in, curious at who this new tenant is, and almost falls over when Mallory looks him right in the eye and asks him what the hell he's doing in his flat.

Q thinks that Mallory must be lonely, because that's the only explanation he can think of for why a man would be so content to spend time with the ghost who haunts his flat. But he can't complain, because Mallory's surprisingly good company, and it's nice to finally be able to talk to someone after all these years, although he can't quite kick the habit of making the lights flicker when he's bored.

"Sometimes I think I'm mad," Mallory says once, when he's sitting on the couch with Q next to him, floating a few inches above the cushions.

"Now, why ever would you think that," Q jokes, but Mallory doesn't smile, just falls silent.

There are nights that Mallory thrashes in his sleep, twists and turns and moans and screams, and Q hovers by his bedside nervously, unsure of whether he can wake him. When he does wake, Mallory tenses and then slumps again as he realizes where he is, but still unable to stop the shakes.

Q's never wanted more to be able to touch another person again, to be able to smooth Mallory's hair and hold him. But all he can do is stay close, chatter on about something to distract Mallory from whatever horrors are haunting his dreams.

 

* * *

 

_assassin!Q and target!M_

The first time that Q and M meet, it's the briefest of moments. M doesn't even see his face as he bumps into the dark-haired stranger on the tube as he's getting off, but Q knows exactly who M is.

The second time, they have a proper conversation, laughing over their mutual addiction to caffeine. It's a short exchange, but it's enough for Q to lift one of M's keys from his coat pocket and to get a good look at his next target, though M has no idea that what is really running through Q's mind as they talk is the best way to kill him.

The third time, M shows up at the flat Q's been staying in temporarily, where nobody should know he is, a hard look in his eyes as he asks for his key back. Q hands it to him wordlessly, and he tells himself that he doesn't kill M then and there because it would have been too messy, too easily led back to him, and not because something about the man fascinates him.

The fourth time, Q shoots M in the chest and leaves him in the empty building, disappearing before any of the MI6 agents can catch him.

The fifth time, they're in M's supposedly secure hospital room. "I'm not sorry," Q says. "I never miss, and I'm not sorry," Q says, and he's gone before M can respond.

The sixth time, M shows up in Q's flat again, which he should have left weeks ago, and says, "Thank you for not missing," because he knows what Q meant when he said that. Q kisses M once, because this is what he stayed for, and now he's disappearing again, running from the people that wanted M dead, because this is the one job he can't bring himself to finish.


End file.
